During the General Assembly of UIC, held virtually on 30 June 2020, UIC Chairman Gianluigi Castelli underlined the work done by the UIC international Covid-19 Task Force led by Marc Guigon, Director of the Passenger department at UIC since the beginning of March.

“I wish to thank François Davenne – UIC Director General - and Marc Guigon for the excellent, massive coordination endeavours in this challenging field. The UIC Covid-19 Task Force was established to support our members in their efforts to ensure that transport services and connectivity could be restored, safeguarding the health and safety of passengers, transport workers and staff, while re-establishing confidence in rail services. As the situation varies among UIC regions, our Task Force serves as a flexible information point which is continuously updated, thus facilitating the international exchange of relevant information, experiences and operational best practices worldwide. Such a Task Force could not be as effective as it truly is, without the constant, proactive cooperation of many of our members and relevant partners and stakeholders (UNECE, APTA, IATA, UITP, ALAF, CER, CIT).

Here I wish to praise all of them and express deep satisfaction for the valuable output that they could jointly provide. The three UIC Covid-19 Task Force guidance documents (Guidance for Railway Stakeholders, Restore Confidence in Rail Travel, RAILsilience) are without question a benchmark and an example for all operators in the mobility field and beyond.”

This task force groups together UIC Members and international organisations. The work is carried out by a UIC multidisciplinary team which successfully regularly produces guidance documents, based on best practices shared between members and partners. The focus is made on the management of the crisis and the recovery phase. “RAILsilience” is a newly born concept which emerged during this period in order to express the capacity of Railways to manage the crisis, adapt their organisation, meet the new challenges of the “new normal”.

The UIC Members thanked UIC very much for the work of this task force, which concretely demonstrates the added value that UIC can bring to the whole community by federating its Members.

A dedicated webpage contains all useful information: https://uic.org/covid-19/

Among the recent deliverables:

• A short film presenting the challenges and the work in progress: https://bit.ly/2C0YSbZ

“How close collaboration across the transport family can spread best practices and keep mobility chains open: the work done by the UIC Covid-19 task force together with UIC members & partners”

• Different translated versions of the guidance documents (Japanese, Spanish, Russian, French, Farsi, Portuguese, among others to come): https://uic.org/covid-19/

• The guide “RAILsilience, back on the track” has just been released: https://uic.org/IMG/pdf/back_on_the_track.pdf

#RAILsilience #StrongerTogether